2014 National Pesticide Forum: Pesticides 101

The 32nd National Pesticide Forum, was held April 11-12, 2014 at the University Place Hotel and Conference Center at Portland State University.

The conference was convened by Beyond Pesticides, Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides and Portland State University's Institute for Sustainable Solutions.

The Forum provided an opportunity for grassroots advocates, scientists, and policy makers to interact and strategize on solutions that are protective of health and the environment. Keynote presentations, workshops, and plenary panels focused on solutions to the decline of pollinators; strengthening organic agriculture; improving farmworker protection and agricultural justice; and creating healthy buildings, schools and homes.

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Pesticides Are Making Children Aggressive

Spraying fungicides on tobacco in a greenhouse in Jalapa, Nicaragua. Photo: courtesy Peter Essick. Pesticides cause a multitude of adverse effects on humans. However, they are especially harmful to children . They may have something to do with the mass-shootings in schools all over America because some of them are neurotoxins. This means they affect and damage the central nervous system and the brain – of all animals, including humans. Warren Porter , professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Wisconsin, conducted experiments with ground water – water drawn from the ground of farms with typical levels of pesticides and fertilizers. He chose farm water contaminated with the insecticide aldicarb, the herbicide atrazine, and nitrogen fertilizer. He tested that mixture on white mice and deer mice. The concentrations of the fertilizer with each of the pesticides (aldicarb and atrazine) in the ground water were of the order of magnitude the Environmental Protection A...

Παγκόσμια Αγροτική Χημική Ηγεμονία

Ράντισμα μυκητοκτόνου σε φυτά καπνού, Νικαράγουα. Φωτογραφία: Peter Essick. Δρ. Εὐάγγελος Βαλλιανᾶτος Η ισχύς της χημικής βιομηχανίας στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες σχεδόν εξαφάνισε το Υπουργείο Προστασίας Περιβάλλοντος ( US Environmental Protection Agency , EPA ). Η πολιτικοποιημένη περιβαλλοντική κυβερνητική υπηρεσία διαχειρίζεται νόμους και κανονισμούς που προδιαγράφουν τι μπορεί να κάνει. Ωστόσο, στην πράξη, πολιτικοί διορισμένοι από τον πρόεδρο της Αμερικής αποφασίζουν τι κάνει το EPA . Σχετικά με αυτή την πολιτική πραγματικότητα, και γνωρίζοντας τις βαθιές ρίζες της επιρροής της βιομηχανίας στο Κογκρέσο και τον Λευκό Οίκο, το EPA κάνει το έργο του απρόθυμα τις περισσότερες φορές. Στην περίπτωση των επικίνδυνων χημικών ουσιών , ιδιαιτέρως τώρα με την κυβέρνηση Τράμπ, το EPA φοβάται να κάνει το ελάχιστο ...

Searching for Aristotle in Lesbos

Map of Lesbos by Giacomo Franco, 1597. Courtesy Wikipedia. Like most Greek islands, Lesbos has been lost in the obscurity of global wars, politics, and the insignificance of modern Greece. Greece without sovereignty Since 2009, the country’s debt to European and American banks has dragged Greece to the Third World. The lenders demanded Greece abdicates its sovereignty to them. Greek politicians obliged and Greece has become the first European country to submit to the humiliations of being a dependency of Brussels. To the eternal shame of “civilized” Europe, anonymous bureaucrats from the troika – a cabal of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission – have been running the country. Rubble and war refugees in the Middle East Lesbos would have maintained its silence had it not been for the American invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003. This American war gave birth to Moslem civil wars. The civil wars in ...

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